Sarries add to Leeds woes

Leeds Carnegie remain rooted to the bottom of the Aviva Premiership after slumping to their third consecutive defeat against Saracens on Sunday.

David Strettle celebrated his first start for Saracens with a try at Headingley as the visitors notched up a 26-14 victory over the Yorkshire club.

Replacement hooker Schalk Brits added to Strettle's 26th minute score late on in a largely pedestrian affair, while Derick Hougaard added 16 points with the boot.

Hougaard drew first blood with a penalty in the third minute, while opposite number Christian Lewis-Pratt missed one soon after following good pressure from the hosts.

Leeds continued to domainte but could not make it pay and on 26 minutes Strettle pounced on Hougaard's grubber to the right corner for the try.

Hougaard added the extras and slotted another penalty and, despite missing another penalty and a drop-goal attempt, Saracens looked well in control with a 13-0 lead at the interval.

Confidence

Six minutes after the restart Lewis-Pratt, who had retained the fly-half berth after last weekend's 16-point haul against Gloucester, hit back with a penalty to close the gap by three.

But the teenager, who had looked full of confidence with the ball in hand, was replaced by Leigh Hinton after picking up an injury in the 53rd minute.

Hinton added three more shortly before the hour mark but Hougaard restored Saracens' 10 point buffer almost immediately with a long range effort.

Eight minutes later Hinton got Leeds back into the game with a penalty to take the score to 16-9.

But their hopes were dashed when the Saracens pack drove over the Leeds line for Brits to touch down in the closing stages and Hougaard converted to make it 23-9.

James Tincknell touched down in the left corner for Leeds four minutes from time, although Hinton failed to add the extras.

But it was already too little to late from the hosts and Hougaard added another penalty in the 80th minute to close the game out.